Download or read book Alkali Trails Or Social and Economic Movements of the Texas Frontier 1846 1900 written by William Curry Holden and published by Texas Tech University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of the first half century after statehood, West Texas remained a frontier wilderness and—unlike the expanding cities in East and Central Texas—sparsely populated with Anglo-American settlements. The scarce rainfalls, freezing blue northers, dusty winds, and scorching heat waves dissuaded many Texans from homesteading west of the U.S. Army's frontier fort system. For decades, only the hardiest attempted to forge their brand of civilization on the West Texas plains. Those who endured faced considerable difficulties in providing for themselves and their families. Many abandoned their homesteads in favor of larger, eastern towns where livelihoods were not so tenuous and the environment not so daunting. Yet as the nineteenth century advanced, so did the westward line of settlement. Cattle ranching ensured the rise of schools, churches, and towns as the great ranches of West Texas fed the nation's ever-growing demand for beef."Indispensable to students of Texas history and invaluable to those interested in the general social aspects of the vast subhumid region of the United States."—Walter Prescott Webb

Download or read book The History of Texas written by and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History of Texas is fully revised and updated in this fifth edition to reflect the latest scholarship in its coverage of Texas history from the pre-Columbian era to the present. Fully revised to reflect the most recent scholarly findings Offers extensive coverage of twentieth-century Texas history Includes an overview of Texas history up to the Election of 2012 Provides online resources for students and instructors, including a test bank, maps, presentation slides, and more

Download or read book A Texas Frontier written by Ty Cashion and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: diversification to form a ranching-based social and economic way of life. The process turned a largely southern people into westerners. Others helped shape the history of the Clear Fork country as well. Notable among them were Anglo men and women - some of them earnest settlers, others unscrupulous opportunists - who followed the first pioneers; Indians of various tribes who claimed the land as their own or who were forcibly settled there by the white government; and.

Download or read book Geology and Politics in Frontier Texas 1845 1909 written by Walter Keene Ferguson and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-11-07 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservation and development of natural resources are issues of critical importance throughout the world. These issues have been matters of public concern in Texas since legislators first adopted the state-sponsored geological survey as a means of extending government funds to private citizens who would help develop and advertise the mineral and agricultural wealth of Texas. Walter Keene Ferguson examines the relation of politics to geological exploration during a critical period in Texas history—the first half-century of statehood. Although Texas shared its frontier experience with many other areas, it could not rely on federal aid in the form of land grants because the state government controlled the destiny of the public domain at all times. Acrimonious debate between farmers and urbanites of East Texas and pioneer ranchers of arid West Texas rendered the disposition of public lands even more difficult. As tools for developing and advertising resources, the geological and agricultural surveys of 1858 and 1867 fulfilled the demands of expectant capitalism made by politicians, speculators, and railroad entrepreneurs. Reconnaissance geologists publicized the wealth of Texas. Drought in 1886 and popular agitation against squandering of state land caused the emergence of a new concept of the geological survey as an instrument of land reform and public assistance. Lobbying by reformers and scientific organizations led to the formation of the Dumble Survey in 1888 and the University of Texas Mineral Survey in 1901. Stratigraphic analysis of the “individualities” of Texas geology helped the state realize its full economic potential and led to legislation to protect public mineral land from exploitation. The youthful oil industry finally removed geological exploration from the political arena. As part of the University, a permanent Bureau of Economic Geology was established in 1909 to extend the benefits of scientific research to private citizens and state organizations on a nonpartisan basis. Ferguson’s analysis of geological surveys in Texas contributes to an understanding not only of the geology and history of the state but of the urgent problem of evaluating the natural resources of underdeveloped regions.

Download or read book The History of Texas written by Robert A. Calvert and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most comprehensive, best-illustrated survey of the Lone Star State—the new, updated edition of the classic text The History of Texas offers a sweeping exploration of the Lone Star State, covering its history from the pre-Columbian period, to the era of Spanish control, to nineteenth century watershed events, through the 1900s and into the new millennium. This engaging, student-friendly textbook looks at how people of diverse politics, identity, class, ethnicity, and race shaped the state’s past and continue to influence its present. Recent knowledge on the political, social, and cultural history of Texas provides insights on the celebrated figures, unsung heroes, and ordinary people of the state’s past. The sixth edition of this classic text has been revised and updated to reflect the latest scholarship in all fields of Texas history, among them New Indian History and cultural and gender studies. The text offers fresh perspectives on Texas history, including discussions of the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, the Second World War and post-war modernization, and the state’s transition during the 1960s and into the 1980s. Revised chapters provide wide-ranging coverage of Texas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including recent statewide and national elections and political debates. This textbook: Connects events in post-World War II Texas to the larger U.S. historical narrative Offers substantial coverage of events occurring from 1900 to 2018 Uses a chronological approach to divide chapters into easily identifiable eras Includes engaging illustrations, maps, and tables, an appendix, and inclusive lists of recommended readings Features online resources for students and instructors, including a test bank, maps, presentation slides, and more Effectively organized to better meet the needs of instructors, The History of Texas is the ideal resource for undergraduate and graduate courses in Texas history at colleges and universities across both the state and the nation.

Download or read book The WPA Guide to Texas written by Federal Writers' Project and published by Trinity University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors—many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures—were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor. Equaling the massive size of the state, the WPA Guide to Texas is just as expansive at 716 pages. From the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley, The Lone Star State’s landscape is as varied as its political and cultural past. Having been under the control of six different nations’ flags, the history section is particularly rich. The guide also includes a helpful list of books about the state.

Download or read book Tejano West Texas written by Arnoldo De León and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring a side of Tejano history too often neglected, author Arnoldo De León shows that people of Spanish-Mexican descent were not passive players in or, worse, absent from West Texas history but instead were active agents at the center of it. The collection of essays in Tejano West Texas—many never before published—will correct decades of historiographical oversight by emphasizing the centrality of the Mexican American experience in the history of the region. De León, a true dean of Tejano history, showcases the continued presence and contribution of Mexican Americans to West Texas. This collection begins in the 1770s when settlers of Mexican descent first began migrating to Presidio and then to other sections of the Big Bend. De León then turns his attention to the nineteenth century when Mexican immigrants and other Texans searched for work throughout the West Texas hinterland, and his coverage continues onward through the twentieth century. Mexican American and Texas history scholars will find Tejano West Texas to be an invaluable addition to the Tejano narrative.

Download or read book Texas Singularities written by Clay Coppedge and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-25 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas, that most singular of states, conceals an entire parade of peculiar events and exceptional people in the back pages of its history books. A Lone Star man once (and only once) tried to bulldog a steer from an airplane. One small Texas town was attacked by the Japanese, while another was "liberated" from America during the Cold War. Texan career choices include goat gland doctor, rubbing doctor, striking cowboy and singing cowboy, not to mention swatter, tangler and dunker. From gunslinger Sally Skull to would-be rainmaker R.G. Dyrenforth, Clay Coppedge collects the distinctive odds and ends of Texan lore.

Download or read book Trails South written by C. Robert Haywood and published by Prairie Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History of the trails from Dodge City Kansas to points in Oklahoma and Texas used primarily for trade from 1880 through the turn of the century.

Download or read book The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877 written by Paul Howard Carlson and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 1877 was a drought year in West Texas. That summer, some forty buffalo soldiers struck out into the Llano Estacado, pursuing a band of raiding Comanches. Several days later they were missing and presumed dead from thirst. Although most of the soldiers straggled back into camp, four died, and others faced court-martial for desertion. Here, Carlson provides insight into the interaction of soldiers, hunters, settlers, and Indians on the Staked Plains.

Download or read book The Lonesome Plains written by Louis Fairchild and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Loneliness pervaded the lives of pioneers on the American plains, including the empty expanses of West Texas. Most settlers lived in isolation broken only by occasional community gatherings such as funerals and religious revivals. In The Lonesome Plains, Louis Fairchild mines the letters and journals of West Texas settlers, as well as contemporary fiction and poetry, to record the emotions attending solitude and the ways people sought relief. Hungering for neighborliness, people came together in times of misfortune--sickness, accident, and death--and at annual religious services. In fascinating detail, Fairchild describes the practices that grew up around these two focal points of social life. He recounts the building of coffins and preparation of a body for burial, the conflicting emotions of the pain of death and the hope of heaven, the funeral rite itself, the lost and lonely graves. And he tells the story of yearly outdoor revivals: the choice of the meeting site and construction of the arbor or other shelter, the provision of food, the music and emotionally-charged services, and tangential courting and mischief. Loneliness is most recognized as a feature of life in the time of the early West Texas cattle industry, a period of sprawling cattle ranches and legendary cattle drives, roughly from 1867 to 1885. But Fairchild shows that it also characterized the lives of settlers who lived in West Texas from the beginning of permanent settlement of the Texas Panhandle (around 1876) through the population shift that occured around the turn of the century, as farmers and their families supplanted ranchers and their cattle. Fairchild draws on primary materials of the early residents to give voice to the settlers themselves and skillfully weaves a moving picture of life in the open spaces of West Texas during the frontier-rural period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Download or read book West Texas written by Paul H. Carlson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas is as well known for its diversity of landscape and culture as it is for its enormity. But West Texas, despite being popularized in film and song, has largely been ignored by historians as a distinct and cultural geographic space. In West Texas: A History of the Giant Side of the State, Paul H. Carlson and Bruce A. Glasrud rectify that oversight. This volume assembles a diverse set of essays covering the grand sweep of West Texas history from the ancient to the contemporary. In four parts—comprehending the place, people, politics and economic life, and society and culture—Carlson and Glasrud and their contributors survey the confluence of life and landscape shaping the West Texas of today. Early chapters define the region. The “giant side of Texas” is a nineteenth-century geographical description of a vast area that includes the Panhandle, Llano Estacado, Permian Basin, and Big Bend–Trans-Pecos country. It is an arid, windblown environment that connects intimately with the history of Texas culture. Carlson and Glasrud take a nonlinear approach to exploring the many cultural influences on West Texas, including the Tejanos, the oil and gas economy, and the major cities. Readers can sample topics in whichever order they please, whether they are interested in learning about ranching, recreation, or turn-of-the-century education. Throughout, familiar western themes arise: the urban growth of El Paso is contrasted with the mid-century decline of small towns and the social shifting that followed. Well-known Texas scholars explore popular perceptions of West Texas as sparsely populated and rife with social contradiction and rugged individualism. West Texas comes into yet clearer view through essays on West Texas women, poets, Native peoples, and musicians. Gathered here is a long overdue consideration of the landscape, culture, and everyday lives of one of America’s most iconic and understudied regions.

Download or read book The Texas Landscape Project written by David A. Todd and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-05 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Texas Landscape Project explores conservation and ecology in Texas by presenting a highly visual and deeply researched view of the widespread changes that have affected the state as its population and economy have boomed and as Texans have worked ever harder to safeguard its bountiful but limited natural resources. Covering the entire state, from Pineywoods bottomlands and Panhandle playas to Hill Country springs and Big Bend canyons, the project examines a host of familiar and not so familiar environmental issues. A companion volume to The Texas Legacy Project, this book tracks specific environmental changes that have occurred in Texas using more than 300 color maps, expertly crafted by cartographer Jonathan Ogren, and over 100 photographs that coalesce to fashion a broad portrait of the modern Texas landscape. The rich data, compiled by author David Todd, are presented in clearly written yet marvelously detailed text that gives historical context and contemporary statistics for environmental trends connected to the land, water, air, energy, and built world of the second-largest and second-most populated state in the nation. An engaging read for any environmentalist or conscientious citizen, The Texas Landscape Project provides a true sense of the grand scope of the Lone Star State and the high stakes of protecting it. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.

Download or read book Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas 1836 1986 written by David Montejano and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-05 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A benchmark publication . . . A meticulously documented work that provides an alternative interpretation and revisionist view of Mexican-Anglo relations.” –IMR (International Migration Review) Winner, Frederick Jackson Turner Award, Organization of American Historians American Historical Association, Pacific Branch Book Award Texas Institute of Letters Friends of The Dallas Public Library Award Texas Historical Commission T. R. Fehrenbach Award, Best Ethnic, Minority, and Women’s History Publication Here is a different kind of history, an interpretive history that outlines the connections between the past and the present while maintaining a focus on Mexican-Anglo relations. This book reconstructs a history of Mexican-Anglo relations in Texas “since the Alamo,” while asking this history some sociology questions about ethnicity, social change, and society itself. In one sense, it can be described as a southwestern history about nation building, economic development, and ethnic relations. In a more comparative manner, the history points to the familiar experience of conflict and accommodation between distinct societies and peoples throughout the world. Organized to describe the sequence of class orders and the corresponding change in Mexican-Anglo relations, it is divided into four periods, which are referred to as incorporation, reconstruction, segregation, and integration. “The success of this award-winning book is in its honesty, scholarly objectivity, and daring, in the sense that it debunks the old Texas nationalism that sought to create anti-Mexican attitudes both in Texas and the Greater Southwest.” —Colonial Latin American Historical Review “An outstanding contribution to U.S. Southwest studies, Chicano history, and race relations . . . A seminal book.” –Hispanic American Historical Review

Download or read book Imperial Texas written by D.W. Meinig and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-22 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “unique and fascinating” look at the various peoples of the Lone Star state from colonial times to the 1960s, illustrated with eighteen maps(American West). Imperial Texas examines the development of Texas as a human region, from the simple outline of the Spanish colony to the complex patterns of the modern state. In this study in cultural geography set into a historical framework, D. W. Meinig, professor of geography at Syracuse University, discusses the various peoples of Texas—who they are, where they came from, where they settled, and how they are proportioned one to another from place to place. In addition, numerous illustrations and maps are included, providing impressions of the populations and migrations that helped shape Texas’s history and culture. “Geography has produced a few scholars who roam more freely in the world of ideas to produce studies of penetration and insight. Meinig is one of these men, and Imperial Texas is such a study.” —Annals of the Association of American Geographers

Download or read book Texas a Guide to the Lone Star State written by Best Books on and published by Best Books on. This book was released on 1940 with total page 835 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Man Absolutely Sure of Himself written by David B. Gracy and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full biography of George Washington Littlefield, the Texas and New Mexico rancher, Austin banker and businessman, University of Texas regent, and philanthropist. In just two decades, Littlefield’s business acumen vaulted him from debt to inclusion in 1892 on the first list of American millionaires. A Man Absolutely Sure of Himself is a grand retelling of the life of a highly successful entrepreneur and Austin civic leader whose work affected spheres from ranching and banking to civic development and academia. Littlefield’s cattle operations during the open range and early ranching periods spanned a domain in New Mexico and Texas larger than the states of Delaware and Connecticut combined. In a unique contribution to ranching art, Littlefield commissioned murals and bronze doors depicting scenes from his ranches to decorate Austin’s American National Bank, which he led for its first twenty-eight years. Gracy provides new information about Littlefield’s term as University of Texas regent and the necessity of choosing between friendship and duty during the university’s confrontation with Gov. James E. Ferguson. Proud of his Civil War service in Terry’s Texas Rangers, Littlefield funded one of the nation’s first centers for Southern history. He also underwrote the school’s purchase of its first rare book library and its training programs preparing troops for World War I’s new combat roles. Littlefield played a central role in advancing Austin from a cattleman’s town into the business center it wanted to become. His Littlefield Building, the tallest office building between New Orleans and San Francisco when it was built, served for a generation as the prime location of the town’s business community. Author David B. Gracy II, a relative of Littlefield, grounds his vivid prose in a lifetime of research into archival and family sources. His comprehensive biography illuminates an exceptional figure, whose life singularly illustrates the evolution of Texas from Southern to Western to American.